


Significant

by JustJasper



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst, Battle, Demons, Established Relationship, Fingering, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Minor Character Death, Near Death Experiences, Smut, Vaginal Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-20
Updated: 2017-11-20
Packaged: 2019-02-01 15:40:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,343
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12707913
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JustJasper/pseuds/JustJasper
Summary: When Krem volunteers the Chargers to clear out Adamant fortress, it means taking reign and leading the Chargers, whether he's up for the job or not.





	Significant

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Shae_C](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shae_C/gifts).



> Ft background Dalish/Skinner and Dorian/Bull.
> 
> Thank you [iodhadh](http://archiveofourown.org/users/iodhadh) for betaing!

_Inquisitor,_

_Per my earlier recommendation, I'd like permission to send some of the Chargers to Adamant fortress. The Inquisition already destroyed most of it; my troops can tear down enough of the rest that it doesn't turn into a stronghold for demons or Venatori or whatever else is out here causing us trouble._

_Lieutenant Cremisius Aclassi_

Adamant looms large in the distance, set into the desert stone with huge spikes protruding from the rock face. An impressive fortress, even with a good portion of the western outer wall already crumbled away. Smoke rises from within the keep, and awful, bone-chilling sounds carry on the wind.

“Dwarven engineering,” Rocky says, coming to the crest of the dune on Krem's left.

“Doesn't looks very dwarven.”

“Orlesians paid for it, dwarves built it.”

“Because it's on the rift?”

“Some reckon it goes right down into the Deep Roads.”

“The Inquisitor mentioned possible darkspawn incursion. Stragglers, but they must come from somewhere.”

“Best avoided, if we can,” Rocky says. “We're here for demons.”

“Oh, you're no fun,” Krem says, deadpan.

He puts his fingers between his teeth and whistles, a high, piercing note that has chatter dying and the company of fifty-eight looking to him, though they still march forward and the wagons still creak slowly across the uneven dry ground.

“We're camping near that outcrop,” Krem calls, gesturing. “Make sure we have good line of sight. If the diggers put us downwind of the privy again nobody's getting ale tonight.”

Amid laughter and grousing, the company splits to set up camp; Bones, Titch and the rest of the diggers haul planks and sacks of sawdust out of a wagon and go to find a spot far enough from camp. Lark, Giant, Short Eric and the pitchers start marking out the best ground for tents. Grim, lugging a huge cast iron pot, leads the feeders to decide where a firepit will work, communicating just fine with his usual nodding and grunting.

The Chargers can put a camp up in two hours. It takes them a little bit longer today, when the scouts report wyverns in the area. Krem wonders what the Chief would make of it as he takes his pocketbook out and scribbles notes for later.

Before the light dies the camp is set, food is cooking and the casks are open. Adamant still looms ominously in the distance.

“The place is creepy,” Skinner says, when she joins him around the fire. “There's still demons there, we could hear them.”

“You weren't spotted, were you?”

“Hard to say, with demons. I think they know we are here. We should have more guards on watch tonight.”

“They're not going to come out here and attack us,” Dalish sing-songs. Skinner scowls at her. “They've got a stronghold, there's no point coming out into the open.”

“We'll up the watch anyway,” Krem says. “I don't want any surprises.”

Stitches passes Krem a bowl of rice as he sits down beside him.

“Potions stocks are back up. That cache had some useful things in it, we'll have enough for some half decent poultices if we need them.”

“The cache was useful for us, too,” Rocky says, checking in. “If we’re gonna destroy the place, not just clear it out.”

Grim is the last of them to arrive at their impromptu meeting, the Bull's de-facto lieutenants, even if he only ever uses the title on Krem.

“Everyone fed?”

Grim nods, and settles down in their makeshift circle, back to the fire.

“It's good grub,” Rocky says. “Just when I thought I'd rather die than eat another bowl of rice, you go and do this to it.”

Grim is quiet under praise, though he grins and kicks out at Rocky playfully.

“Let's hope that supply cache isn't the highlight of this excursion,” Krem says. “Hoping for a little more of that luck tomorrow. How are everyone's new intakes?”

“I love them,” Dalish says immediately, with feeling. “Snowflake – you'll see what I did with the nickname – she's—”

“An ice mage?” Stitches offers.

“She doesn't talk much, granted, but she's brilliant.”

“How many new mages did we intake?”

“Four,” Krem says.

“Definitely weird, having more _specialist archers_ ,” Dalish says. The joke's old now, well worn, but it seems weirder _not_ to dance around it. “Always thought I was going to be the Bull's token archer.”

“He doesn't _mind_ mages,” Krem says.

“The same way you don't _mind_ mages,” Stitches says. “Different to actually employ them. The Inquisition's managed to form a competent system from the remains of the circles, they're a tactical advantage.”

“Fiona's a bore,” Dalish says, “but she knows what she's doing. Between her and Madam de Fer, he'd have been stupid to not takes a couple archers on.”

Skinner huffs loudly, rolling her eyes. “It is simpler than all that; he's fighting with mages, he's friends, he's fucking Pavus, some of the fear has to fall away in knowing.”

“Like you and shems?” Dalish teases.

Skinner rolls her eyes, but she isn't wrong – Skinner hardly even calls _them_ shems any more.

“What about your new swordsmen?” Rocky asks. “Couple of them look a little green.”

“They're young, not green,” Krem insists. “Noble's some rich kid, has to watch his attitude but whoever trained him did a real good job. Granted, Elain's inexperienced but she's got the knack for it. She might be worth moving to two-handed proficiency.”

“Elain?”

It's a tradition now, that nicknames happen and stick, even if they're stupid.

“For now. I don't want another Pisser situation.”

“What?” says a dwarf sitting a stone’s throw away, looking up.

“Talking about you, Pisser, not to you.”

He shrugs, turning back to his conversation.

Grim's on pot washing rotation too, so eventually he gathers their empty bowls and heads out. Dalish trails after him, chattering animatedly, seeming to find Grim's grunts and one-word mumbled answers compelling enough.

Stitches, Rocky and Skinner get out cards, then Pisser and Heel join the circle. Krem gets his pocketbook out and makes more notes, ready to transcribe into proper field notes when he's got the time.

The Chief has handed responsibility for the day to day to him, but he still likes to sign off the paperwork. Krem gets it, doesn't feel undermined – as much as he knows the Bull is having fun going out and running with the Inquisitor, there was definitely longing in him when they discussed this excursion.

Krem, for his part, is definitely more of a second in command than a leader. It feels wrong, without the Chief. They're the Bull's Chargers, after all, and even when he can do the work, and even when his boss tells him what a good job he's doing – it’s not right. It doesn't feel right – they're here on the edge of something huge and he isn't their leader, they shouldn't follow him, he's not the one they chose to follow.

Krem gets up – the others look at him briefly, and he can feel eyes heavy on him as he goes to his tent.

He's being stupid and he knows it. He also knows he's only going to work himself into something dark if he keeps thinking about it. He stashes his pocketbook and instead goes through his pack.

His armour sits ready, propped over the handle of his maul. He touches the breastplate briefly with his fingers – why does he feel like hiding in it now? It's nothing to do with his body, not today – his chest brace sits snugly over his vest, under his shirt, flattening him enough that he feels almost right. The armour's always made him feel better, though, like he could have things be true just by believing them; whether that was “I'm a man, _”_ or “I'm not in over my head.”

When he rejoins the group he’s got a leather pouch and a piece silk stretched over a small wooden hoop – not a project really, but practice, something to keep his fingers busy. Stitches turns away from the card game as Krem sits at his back, leaning against him.

“You alright?”

“Yup.”

“No point stressing, mate. We're here now.”

Krem lets out a long breath through his nose, and starts organising loose threads. Stitches leans his head back so it's resting on Krem's shoulder.

“You want to call it a night?” he starts, voice pitched low, just for them to hear. “You want to go back to the tent so I can suck you off?”

Krem makes an amused sound, and turns to nudge Stitches' face with his chin.

“That medical advisement?”

“Stress relief, yes.”

“I'm good. Need to be around a while longer in case any of the men need me.”

“Alright,” Stitches says, at a more normal level. He turns his face in and gently rests his lips against the edge of Krem's jaw – not quite a kiss, but something intimate all the same.

When he lifts his head and goes back to concentrating on his card game, his back remains warm against Krem's, comfort found in the lack of space between them, in presence even without vision.

Adamant still looms, the darkest shadow in the night.

*

They all consider the state of play as they make their preparations. It’s a mid-morning attack; after dawn, because Dalish says the veil “gets weird” then and whenever she says something undeniably mage-y he tends to listen, and before the height of the day when the sun is hottest and leaves them vulnerable to fatigue.

Commander Rutherford offered some men to help, but they couldn't be spared. The extra manpower would have made the job easier, but Lady Montilyet managed to get them some supplies from some Orlesians or other – so the men are all well fed and watered, with a few new swords, shields and bows among the mix.

It's not like they haven't cleared out demons before – there's even a few choice jokes about encountering another envy demon here, as they approach the fortress.

When they're close enough, Rocky leads his sappers towards the eastern wall, setting down barrels. Dalish's archers get into vantage for cover fire, and her _archers_ ready barriers over them.

“On the parapets!” someone yells, just as a magical projectile fizzles against one of the barriers over the sappers. One becomes dozens within seconds.

“Back, lads!” Rocky calls, and the barriers shimmer around them as they retreat from the wall. One of the mages spreads crackling lighting along the parapets, giving them a reprieve from attacks aimed down onto them.

“Do the honours!” he calls, and with a laugh Dalish orders a flaming arrow aimed at the barrel with a big X painted in it.

Rocky likes big explosions, and it rattles the ground. Krem widens his stance so he doesn't fall on his arse, watches the wall crumble away into huge clouds of dust.

That's when the demons start to scream.

As the dust clears, Krem gives the order, and his men know what to do. He leads the advance, vaulting over fallen stones to get into the fortress as arrows and magic whiz past him, aimed at the first advancing wraiths.

Here, there's space for him to heft his maul and swing it at the nearest monster – a spindly terror demon that swipes at him. Its claws scrape along his breastplate as he gets close, aiming for its body. The way it moves – it’s like nothing else, and Krem has to adjust his swings to the strange gait the demon has.

An arrow cuts through the air and skewers the demon's gnarled ankle, and it stumbles with a screech. Krem doesn't have time to look around for who aided him, only to bring his maul smashing down on the demon again and again, until it howls and disintegrates before his eyes. They seldom leave bodies, and there's something deeply unsettling about a death without a corpse.

There's only wraiths he can see – the barest form of demon, but not enough in number to swarm.

“Lieutenant!” someone calls. “Big ones up here!”

“Clear them out,” Krem says to a few of his warriors, then to the rest, “The stairs, this way.”

Up on the walls that criss-cross the fortress, it looks a lot more like Adamant. His men are spread out fighting pockets of demons. Bell is closest, sword swinging for a bubbling fire demon as he tries to dodge the putrid sulphur from its mouth. They rush to help end the fight, putting the demon to death swiftly.

“Incoming!” Bell says, as a spindly terror leaps at them, just as a blast of cold against the back of Krem's helmet. Fuck, a terror is one thing, but he hates the flying ones, that shoot ice and seem to drain everything good from the air around them.

The call goes out from somewhere: “Watch out, sad bastard!”

The laugh catches in Krem's throat as it descends on them, throwing sharp shards of ice towards them. It's too high to hit with his maul, and too quick for whoever is trying to hit it with arrows.

“Snowflake!” Dalish calls above the demon's screeching, and an elf – shit, of course, she's the ex-qunari mage – comes running towards the fray, dodging the demon's ice missiles as her staff begins to light up.

It's ice against ice, and if the demon was a flesh and blood creature it'd be bloody – she pulls the thing apart with ice, great growths of it at the joints where its arms are, at its neck. It's horrible, and Dalish is grinning and whooping from her vantage on a parapet, taking pot-shots at demons from her perch.

“Where's the rest?” Krem calls, while the despair demon is pulled apart by Snowflake's ice.

“They're concentrated at the north,” she shouts. “Where the arch-demon shat itself!”

He's heard the reports about Adamant, so when he finds the collapsed walkway and the walls damaged in a way that probably align to having a demonic dragon climbing over them, he's found the bulk of the demons.

For a stupid minute there, he'd thought it was going to be easy.

There's dozens of demons, and dozens of his men in the fray with them. Towering green long-limbed beasts, flying terrors, even some of those tall, horrific once-mages. Worst – corpses, only weeks dead, rotting, sun-baked Grey Wardens, wielding their swords under the will of that horror.

“Take out the mages!” Krem shouts, as he bolts down the stairs. It's so crowded, he stays on the edges of the fray – he can't swing his maul around properly without taking out his own men, but he can pick off stragglers and demons coming in from outside looking to swell the ranks.

There's a body in the midst of the fighting. Dwarf by the size, armoured, face down. Not Rocky, he'd know Rocky at a hundred paces, not Pisser or Coin, but it could be Dales, it could be Nuggles, it could be Strong—

“Man down!” someone shouts. Another one, not whoever is lying there surely dead.

“I'm coming!” Stitches shouts, extracting himself from the fray and heading for the stairs at the opposite side of the courtyard. Stitches is at the bottom of the stairs and can't see right to the top. Krem is halfway up a staircase and can see the hulking figure of a demon right where his doctor is heading.

“Stitches!” he calls in warning, but he's already on his way. Krem backtracks, thinks it might be faster to go around the upper wall to get to him and whoever is hurt. There's demons in his way, terrors and wraiths but most people are fighting down below, so he can carve through them with his maul swinging.

He gets there just in time to see his doctor – his company's fucking doctor hefting a sword against the great lurching pride demon, trying to slash the hammer of a fist that’s aimed at him. He's almost there when it knocks him sprawling to the ground, terrible claws slashing across his unarmoured fucking neck.

“ _Stitches!”_

There's a gash in his neck, bleeding all over him, but his grip is strong when he grabs at Krem's armour.

“C'mon, you're alright, stay with me.”

He realises too late that he's dropped his maul out of reach as the demon roars and advances. If he moves, it'll get Stitches. If he doesn't, maybe his armour, maybe –

“Go!” someone screams, throwing herself bodily between them and the demon, sword swinging. “Move, Lieutenant!”

Elain, helmet gone and nose bleeding, missing a pauldron from her armour, raises her shield as the demon swings. She doesn't quite buckle under the blow, but she yells with pain. The demon does too, but Krem is scrambling to pull Stitches – please only unconscious, not dead – out of the way, and he doesn't realise until he looks up again that the demon is still bearing down, its arm pinned to Elain's shield with her sword. It tries to pull free, and she holds on.

The pride demon backs to its full height, Elain still holding onto to the shield attached to its arm. It grabs her body with its other hand, wrenching her from her shield, vambrace clattering to the ground as she screams.

He can only watch as it shakes her, until her screaming stops, and it drops her to the stone, falling like a ragdoll.

His hands are slick with Stitches' blood when he grips the handle of his maul, and the demon turns towards him.

*

_It's with regret I report the loss of_

A new piece of paper, and a moment to consider; they knew the risks. The Inquisitor, surely sympathetic, leads a military force, but these are not her men. It's not her burden.

_The Chargers did what they could to tear down the walls. The demons in the area didn't seem to appreciate the effort, but my men escaped without significant losses. No one will be using Adamant Fortress against us, Inquisitor. It's nothing more than a pile of rubble now._

_Lieutenant Cremisius Aclassi_

They burn the bodies on a pyre in the rubble Adamant after Rocky's crew have levelled the place; Nuggles is the one who fell in the northern courtyard, throat bitten out by a terror; Heel survived his burns an hour after the battle was won, screaming the whole time; Shieldmaiden was dead where she fell, crushed in the pride demon's grip, blood spreading out from her cracked skull by the time the demon was obliterated.

Stitches, bearing two dozen of his namesake, insists on helping with post-battle treatments. Krem writes his reports and his letter to the Inquisitor, drafts one over and over for the Bull. He can't bear to put their deaths to paper, and joins the rest of the men in drinking, the strange mix of victory celebration and mourning that comes after losing men.

Food, ale, music, and extra pay for anyone who abstains and sticks to the watch. Pisser's already blind drunk, but he dragged Heel out of Adamant as his skin peeled off, so everyone's ready to refill his cup whenever he holds it aloft. Skinner and Dalish are nowhere to be found, which probably means they're fucking. Rocky's got a broken toe, but he didn't get that until demolition and it was his own fault, so everyone's giving him shit for it. Grim – well, how do you measure how Grim's doing? He's unharmed and quiet, drinking and contributing to conversation in the way they're all used to.

Krem pokes his head into the medical tent, looking for the last of the lieutenants.

“Where's Stitches?”

“Told him to go rest.”

“He listen?”

“Probably not.”

He's not. He's in their shared tent, mixing poultices at the table. He doesn't stop when Krem enters, just looks up, smiles warmly like he isn't sporting a great gash that runs down his neck and collar.

“You should be resting.”

“I will. Work doesn't stop, let me just finish up.”

“You need to stop,” Krem says. He can't take his eyes from the stitched wound, tinted green from the poultice, left to the open air and looking a few days healed already thanks to a mixture of medicine and magic.

“I won't be long.”

“No, you need to _stop._ ” Stitches turns then, finally giving Krem his full attention. “We're fifty men, we can't spare any one of us, we don't need a battlefield medic. Seeing you sprawled on your arse, sword nowhere to be seen – a liability. You're a liability.”

Stitches just looks at him levelly.

“I lost three men today, and it could have been four. It could have been you. If you'd stayed back where a medic belongs...”

“Like it or not, I'm a fighter as much as you are. The amount of times I've saved your hide in battle, the amount of times me being there is the only reason the body count isn't higher is – well, it's a lot. You know it.”

Krem stares at him, livid, even if he knows Stitches isn't wrong.

“I know the Chief put you in charge, so I know you bear their deaths, but you didn't do anything wrong. You're as good a leader as the Bull is; or you could be, if you believed it. We're your men as much as his, as much as you are ours. If it hurts it's because you care enough for it to matter when we lose men.”

He gets up from his chair slowly, hand going to the wound at his neck as he grits his teeth through the pain.

“There isn't any blame you need to shift. Shit, Krem; just tell me you're upset I got hurt like a normal person.”

Krem sniffs, hands on his hips, turning his head to look at the ceiling of the tent as he feels tears begin to prick at his eyes.

“Theodehad...”

Stitches lets out a laugh through his nose, the slightest thing that breaks the drama of the moment at the use of his real name.

“Stop being an idiot.”

Krem laughs too, the sound a little fragile, as tears behind to leak of of his eyes as he keeps looking at the ceiling of the tent.

“Would you say I've done an alright job not being an idiot since Bull left me in charge?”

“Up until right now I'd say you were doing a great job. Now shut up and come over here.”

Stitches is a head taller than Krem, lean approaching gangly, and wraps his arms around Krem's neck, his legs around his middle gamely as Krem hoists him into his arms.

“Show off.”

“You going to let me look after you? Without comments about my bedside manner?”

“I guess so,” Stitches says. Krem takes him over to his cot and puts him down much more carefully than he would normally.

“I'm going to—”

Stitches nods, lets Krem untie his boots and leathers and take them off his legs. His leggings after that, his socks last.

“You too,” Stitches says, lips inches from his. If Krem kisses him now, he’ll probably never stop.

Stitches drags his hands down Krem's sides as he stands. He kicks off his boots, takes off his shirt, pulls open the lacing on the front of his chest brace until he feels it give and it's loose enough to slip over his head with the vest it sits on.

His belt off, leathers slipped down his hips until Stitches makes a pleased sound and leans forward to press his mouth to the subtle trail of chestnut hair revealed under Krem's navel.

“You're getting so hairy,” he murmurs.

“Keep me on those magic potions, I'll look like Rocky in no time.”

“It's not magic,” Stitches says, as he helps Krem out of his trousers, “it's medicine. You know how much Rivaini I had to translate to find the right herbs?”

“And you know how many rashes I got before it worked? Lie back and let me look after you.”

Stitches doesn't do as he’s told until Krem leans down and kisses him finally, wraps his hands around the back of his neck and pulls him with him, opens his mouth when Krem deepens the kiss to something fierce, possessive.

“Oil,” Krem says. Ever the doctor, ever prepared, Stitches breaks the kiss so he can rummage under the pillow for it.

“You going to fuck me?”

“Yes, but it's for me. Your cock today, not mine; you're too delicate right now.” Krem says, as he sits up and unstoppers the bottle, pouring some onto his cupped fingers. “I keep drying out.”

“It's the dawn lotus, sorry. I'm only a bit scratched up, if you want to fuck me properly—”

“This is proper,” Krem says, as he presses his oiled hand against himself, presses a finger inside. “Shut up and let me look after you.”

“You're so bossy sometimes, lieutenant,” Stitches chuckles, but pulls him down all the same to kiss him again. His hand finds Krem's where he's slicking himself, fingers tracing the back of his palm. “At least let me help out.”

Where his own hand was perfunctory, Stitches' is lingering, patient as he strokes his hard flesh, gets him to shudder out a breath before he slips fingers lower and inside, until the heat in his belly's been stoked to a flame.

Intimacy like this used to scare the shit of him, so much that he convinced himself it wasn't a thing he even wanted, because in Tevinter it would mean being found out and that meant shame and punishment. Here, with his men, brothers, comrades, friends, he's already known. There's no home for fear in him now, when he doesn't ever have to doubt who is is, or his place here.

Stitches' cock is on the slim side, not overlong, and slides inside Krem easily. He presses down until it's all inside, until Stitches is groaning, hips flexing below him.

“Theo, just let me look after you,” he says softly, leaning down to kiss him again.

“Soppy git,” Stitches says, smiling against his mouth, before he lets him.


End file.
